


ICU

by a tattered rose (atr)



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:13:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atr/pseuds/a%20tattered%20rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was possible she had missed something.</i>  And in pursuit of knowledge, both scientific and personal, at the end of the day that's not such a bad thing.  So long as you figure it out eventually.</p><p>An unnamed incident throws Henry and Helen's relationship onto a new trajectory, in which figures quite a bit of smut.  Mostly smut, in fact.  (Slight spoilers for Edward)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Parts 0 and 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilferret](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lilferret).



> Written for lilferret for LJ's sanctuary_santa, 2009.
> 
> "I have to disclaim that I've never written a proper rated-R fic before, much less NC-17, all failings are my own."

She wasn't there. She didn't see. Guilt is kicking in.

Again.

She'd 'patched him up' as best she could. A fitting description for the attempted repair of torn flesh, frayed muscle, snapped bones. Enough to give a favoured doll new life, but not near enough to fix a broken man. For that he would be alone.

With the pain. The horror. And the choice.

Again.

There were others to care for but she can't pull herself from his stillness. She sees the little boy she hadn't saved and the man he has become.

When he wakes, she will be here.

\- . -

The first time he came to her he was still half-healed. Lines of pain were etching into his features and his movements were careful and controlled. But his hands were steady, sliding up her arms and around to push into her hair and pull her mouth to his. He didn't speak much anymore, not since he woke up. But there were glimmers of his old humor in his kisses, smiles and unexpected nips at her lips in between deliberate explorations with his tongue.

She let him lead, to take whatever he needed from her. Softly stroked over his chest and shoulders, cradled his jaw with her palm. Kissed along the edge of his ear when he buried his face in her shoulder and started to tremble. Pulled him closer and pushed her hips forward against the hardness in his pants. And again, when his low moan vibrated into her neck and he ground himself against her. And then again, rotating her hips until he took permission and slid his fingers into the waistband of her skirt.

They undressed each other slowly, pausing after each garment to touch and ask and learn. Then she led him to her bed and they lay side by side, hands working at each other. He teased her nipples with flicks, kneaded her breasts and traced the outlines of her ribs. She tugged lightly at his piercings until he growled, then reached down to grab him at the base.

When he found her clit she bit her lip at the sparks of sensation from his rough fingers against dry skin. Her hand clenched on him when he dipped down between her lips, smearing wetness back up and around. Blood was pooling in her pelvis and she squirmed as he settled into a languid rhythm, matching it herself with light strokes up and down his shaft. He was fully hard now, and she changed tactics, licking her palm and settling it over his head. Fingers resting on his corona she pushed and twisted, until his breathing became hard and erratic, his fingers clutching into her.

It wasn't the most accessible position for either of them, or the most comfortable, but it was gentle on his body. Usually she required a bit more to get off, but the enforced restraint of their movements was erotic, the simple fact that he was here with her at all adding a desperation to her body's responses. Moving her hand quicker on him, she snuck her other hand down to push his fingers deeper into her, then rubbed at her own clit frantically.

His head dropped to her shoulder a moment before he came into her hand. Feeling the contractions and squirts sent her over the edge as well and she cried out softly.

Afterwards they lay together, hands on each others' waists. They drew thoughtless doodles on bare skin before she drew up the covers and they fell asleep, messy but uncaring. Some things were more important.


	2. Part 2

The second time he came to her the raw scars marring his body were beginning to fade. His movements were regaining some of his old spontaneity, and he no longer cloistered himself away from his friends every evening.

She was writing a new detention protocol when he entered her office. The action was so normal that she was still on the verge of asking what he needed when he crossed behind her desk and pulled her up from the chair. In one fluid motion he swung her back against the wall and followed, trapping her with braced arms to either side. The move was certainly threatening, and unexpected. Her heart sped but not from fear.

He didn't kiss her. Not right away. Instead he sniffed at her collarbone, her shoulder blade, behind her ear. Leaning in closer he licked her pulse point and she let her head fall back against the wall. Her nose was filled with a peculiar musk – a heady whiff of excitement overtop familiar earthy notes. It occurred to her that there were still so many things they didn't know about his abnormality. Questions she hadn't even thought to ask recently, distracted by concern for his well-being.

Much as she hated to admit it, his current behavior did beg investigation. The first night together she had written off when it hadn't repeated. But this?

-She rolled her head back to look at him. He was watching her, sharp eyes focused on her so closely that she felt more like prey than passion. She was the better fighter and could knock him aside any time she chose. Or could she?-

This wasn't a response to pain, or fear. This was deliberate. This was demanding, and Henry had never demanded anything of her. Deviations from norm require research and explanation.

-The only potential problem with the rational course of action, she thought, as she stared into his eyes and caught the beginnings of a smile tug through his cheeks, was that she didn't actually mind.-

She relaxed against the wall and he chuckled, lowering his head to smear wet kisses up her neck and along her jaw before finally settling in to her mouth. He tasted like the chocolate you melt with campfired marshmallows. Rich and sweet and innocent. Inhales and exhales tickled her face as he breathed through his nose, never moving his mouth from hers. Her hands scrambled for purchase on the wall, ready to touch him.

When his hands fell to pull at the buttons of her jacket, hers went for his belt. Together they crashed to the ground, cursing as elbows smacked hard wood and Helen landed with her wrist the wrong way. But it was only a moment until Henry had rolled on top of her, shoving up her skirt and settling into the space she opened between her legs. His assault on her mouth continued as he ground against her through layers of cloth. She tried to give as good as she got, but he was relentless, and his weight pinned her down. Her jacket and shirt had been ripped open to display her bra, but they still bound her shoulders like her skirt bound her hips. These restrictions were driving her mad as she tried to move tried to move him higher tried to get him inside tried to stop the tension that was building inexorably...

“God, Henry, Please!” She moaned into his mouth, not above pleading.

The part of her brain still thinking logically expected him to laugh again, but instead he growled low in his throat and rolled off her. Just far enough to undo the zipper on his pants. Helen took the momentary freedom to resettle her shoulders and pull her skirt higher so it puddled around her waist. By then Henry had pulled his cock free and was squeezing at the hard flesh. She wanted it, she was ready, her muscles already clenching tight around nothing looking for something to fill her and stretch her. A pearl of pre-cum leaked from his tip after a long, thorough stroke, and she couldn't resist reaching out to rub it into the dark flesh. His hips jerked and he positioned himself at her entrance, pushing her panties to one side and thrusting in until they were fused.

Helen clenched around him, urging him on and he pulled back and pushed in: short, deep thrusts that crushed his weight back and forth on her clit and tortured her cervix and made her wrap her legs around his thighs to gain every last fraction of pressure.

Drops of sweat fell from the tip of his nose onto her cheek like tears. She thought she might be crying but she wasn't sure. Didn't matter. Her orgasm was building and she grabbed at his short hair, redistributing the sweat sheening his body as she pulled him back to her mouth. He was panting, hot and ragged into her mouth, and she came as he slid forwards again, a little further than before. She felt his silent cry as he followed her, jerking against her spasms until the only trembling was his arms, holding him up

Helen pulled him down by the shoulders until he lay on top of her. All she could manage were long, shallow breaths, but his weight blanketing her felt much better right then than the ability to fill her lungs.


	3. Part 3

The third time he came to her there wasn't much more that time could do. It was pretty well accepted all around that he was never going to be quite the same. Silence, here and there, where once there would have been easy laughter. A few programs written and delivered before they were requested. Eyes that didn't always refocus the moment someone spoke to him.

She had been waiting for him, though she barely admitted it. Dallied in her office after landing the helicopter at midnight. Wandered by his lab in case he was still awake. Took the long route back to her room with the slower tread of disappointment when she found him, leaning against her door. She wondered if he had been there all the while, or if he had been tracking her all night, one step ahead.

One answer was a bit more exciting than the other, but either way her body had cottoned on to something of a trend involving Henry, late nights, and alone time. As soon as she'd seen him her blood dropped, creating a bit of a paradox considering she felt heated, through and through. It took a not insignificant quantity of will power to reach around him for the door handle, then slip by looking elegant while being sure not to brush him. Touching was his game, his first move.

Except he didn't.

Helen stopped, a step into the room, waiting for him to grab her, follow her, do anything that wouldn't leave her alone after all. Her skin was crackling with fiery desire to be touched, taken.

She turned around, half-fearing he wouldn't even be there. He was. Lounging in her doorway. His body creating an beautiful silhouette of languid ease. Which she couldn't appreciate, drawn instead to his eyes, glinting in the sparse light from window and hallway. Cool moonlight from the window, warm lamplight from the hall. A battle of tone etched into the penetrating stare which froze her in place and set her ablaze. Asked and demanded. Laughed and wept.

 _Oh._

It wasn't a question she felt equipped to answer, and if she had to respond in words she was fairly certain she wouldn't like what she would come up with. Though to be fair, Henry likely wouldn't be happy with any phraseology on his part either. It was a situation that didn't translate well. The omega wolf choosing a new role within his pack. Of course she was delighted that he was finally shedding his long-held position. She would never deny him that; no one would. But within the same context, could she really commit to mate with him? Share herself with a man she had watched since boyhood? Someone grown so integral to her world that the thought of being without him stung as badly – though with different pain – than losing her daughter?

If the answer was no, he would leave.

If she said yes and didn't mean it, he would never come back.

 _This would be_ , she thought, with an edge of desperation, _a singularly appropriate moment for a cliché tendril of chill wind or symbolically guttering torch._ Anything to hand her an answer or at least signal a moment in which an answer might appear. Alas, her window was firmly shut and the electric lights irritatingly prone to stability. Damn Tesla. It was her choice and her move.

She couldn't. It wasn't in her. Not since... Not since John. Maybe not even then. She was a bit of a lone wolf herself. There were things she would never be.

Focusing on the texture of the shadows ebbing over his features she took the step back to him. Lifted one hand to his cheek in apology, lightly scratching the pads of her fingers against the rough young growth over his jaw. Slipped one finger along the smooth line of a scar which continued down his neck and tried to forget what it had looked like as a fresh wound. They had never spoken about any of this. Not about that day, or their nights together. Only using the most clinical of language during his recovery. _Bones_ and _x-rays_ and _positive signs of progress_. Probably that was the problem. She had given him space, too much space, and it was too late now to go back. It was too late for apologies.

Her throat ached with the effort to say even that simple inadequate phrase. I'm sorry. She needed him to forgive her, or at least to understand that... To understand. To stop watching her with that sharp dispassion which made her feel hollow.

So she kissed him. Closed her eyes tight and tried to keep herself from pressing against him while her mouth searched his for the words she didn't have.

He didn't respond and she wasn't surprised. Her tongue ghosted one last time over his bottom lip. And when she pulled back, opened her eyes to look at him once more through a film of unshed tears, a whisper of air tickled her neck and the reflected light in his eyes flickered. A dry sob escaped past the lump in her throat and she threw herself against him. One hand was already threading through her hair, holding her head, as the other slid around her lower back. Not so much pulling her closer – there was no _closer_ to pull her to – as the infinitely more reassuring promise that she wasn't meant to be anyplace else.

Henry's mouth opened immediately for her. His shoulders rolled forwards when she tugged at them. He wasn't resisting but he wasn't quite passive and she continued her frenzied attack on his mouth and raised one leg to rub her thigh along his. The hand left her head and she pressed herself harder against him until the hand reappeared on her body, just below her waistband. Her mouth stilled in surprise as he firmly stroked her, over the curve of her ass, then along her thigh until he caught her under the knee and pinned her solidly around him.

Then he kissed her, playfully, confusingly at odds with both her own roil of emotions and the hard evidence of his own desire she had been trying to avoid rubbing her hip against.

It was possible she had missed something.

Fisting her hands securely in his shirt, she leaned back far enough to look at him. He was smiling back at her, open and warm and with an achingly familiar quirk of his eyebrow he thrust into her, gyrating her hips with his in a familiar circle.

A wolf pack, Helen knew, was really a more fluid social dynamic than humans tended to ascribe to 'beasts.' Alphas often switched on whim, and the omega was generally omega by choice. The tighter the pack, the more the roles rotated around spheres of personality.

The toothy grin she was staring at was an alpha's intent. Laughing at her-

 _Oh._

She leaned forwards to kiss him, long and deep and returned. Thrust against him, not quite ready yet to leave the security of their position in order to move into the room.

The scientific tendency of her mind made another surprising discovery regarding its failings. She was glad her body, guided by more primal understanding, had known this all along and prevented her from answering the wrong question. No, she couldn't reinvent herself omega for him. But that wasn't what he wanted, not what he had been asking.

Tangling her fingers into his belt, Helen squirmed until he let her knee drop to the floor. Then she backed into the room, tugging him along.

Henry kicked the door shut, leaving them alone in the blue moonlight.

The real question wasn't about what she could give him. The answer to that was everything, she had proven that the first night he had come to her. The question was how much she was willing to take from him. If she could ask for it, demand it, knowing he would give her everything in return.

She could.

She would.

She was.

By the time the back of her legs bumped against the edge of her mattress her lips were curving into a grin of her own. For an instant his eyes took on an amber shade, his smile more feral with pointed teeth. She bit her own lip and raked her nails down the bulge in his pants before working at buttons and zippers. He mimicked her, and their clothes fell around them at random as they fought themselves free and finally collapsed naked onto the bed.

She felt free.

Henry was kissing her neck, licking and nipping all those sensitive spots he already knew about and looking for more. Helen squirmed under him, huffing in frustration until she rolled them over. _This_ was what she wanted. Settling herself over his hips she rubbed her folds along his length while she busied herself looking for _his_ sensitive places. Exploratory hands ran up and down his chest, feeling for the shudder of muscle and listening for the hiss of exhale that would mark another successful discovery. He let her, hands supporting her hips and drawing tight circles with his thumbs.

When she leaned down to apply her lips to his nipple she grabbed his wrists, moving his hands up to her own breasts. He took the hint, mimicking her ministrations with flicks and squeezes. She kept the metal ring under her tongue until it was hot, then pulled back to blow cool air over his wet heated flesh. He arched under her, hips jerking upwards as his head fell back, leaving his neck open.

Leaning farther forwards she attacked her new target, crushing her breasts against his chest and her clit against the vein running down the underside of his shaft. He moaned, almost dislodging her when he pulled one knee up, giving him the leverage to thrust insistently up at her. She huffed over the tendons running down his neck, throwing her leg over his hips and shifting more than was absolutely necessary to find new balance over him. They slid easily against each other – she was already wet and open.

“Helen-” Her name came out in a warning growl, the edge of desperation funny except that she was nearing that point herself. There had been a little too much frustration and denial for the extent of foreplay she wanted to explore.

There would be other chances for that.

She gave in. Raising herself onto her haunches she pushed him back down, hovering over him as she teased just a little more. Cupping his balls and feeling every inch of his cock as it twitched and her inner muscles clenched in sympathy, guiding the velvety head up and down and around but not quite pressing it in-

His hips lifted suddenly, pushing himself up through her slick hand and just barely inside. It was enough to be too much and she let go, falling the rest of the way onto him. They both froze in a tableaux of sensation. Bracing herself on his chest she raised herself up, then back down in slow, steady pace. The ends of her hair fell against him, but she she was too focused to notice this – or how much he liked it.

The scientist through and through she experimented with the variables at hand. Depth, angle, tempo, length of stroke and pressure exerted. Some combinations made her legs too weak to keep up, some had him gyrating under her as his fingers fumbled against her. She made note of these and moved on, until she lost patience for exploration and went for speed and depth and satisfaction. He met her thrust for thrust, with a force and exactness that proved how many other interesting possibilities there were, once he wasn't letting her lead.

Her orgasm was building with every stroke, and she reached for herself blindly, only to have her fingers knocked aside by his. He kept the same tempo, adding variations in pressure that had her adding rolls to her hips at each descent and panting loudly as she searched for that one last movement that would send her crashing over the edge. He found it for her, making a fist and rubbing her with the harder, sharper pressure of his knuckles. She fell with a cry, vaguely aware that his other hand was at her hip, steadying and guiding her as she lost the rhythm amidst the waves of her release.

He was still hard inside of her, and in a bid to stop the maddening scrape of him against her sensitive flesh she reached back for his testicles, squeezing rather harder than she ought when she found them pulling up against his body. With that he came, destroying what was left of their rhythmic dance as he pushed up and pulled her down.

Minutes later he was softening and she was regaining her coordination. She pulled off him gently, rolling to the side to inspect the marks and handprints left on his skin. Some of them were very artistic indeed, flush and alive against pale skin.

The sated bonelessness of his body in her bed leant her voice an unduly chipper note. “Ready to go again?” One hand tugged gently at his softening erection, watching his muscles jump.

His eyelashes raised far enough to reveal critical blue eyes. Hands restrain her wrists, pull her down against his chest, securely away from his nether regions. She could feel his words against her cheek, unheard laughter reverberating in his chest. “This is called cuddle-time, Helen. So cuddle, or the big bad wolf will eat you up.”

She craned her neck until she could meet his eye, running her tongue over her canines. “Do you promise?”

And they both laughed, and cuddled, and thought about the inappropriately adult implications in fairy tales.


End file.
